Will Veron keep Beckham out of the England engine room?

IT WAS a source of fevered speculation in some quarters and mild amusement in others when Juan Sebastian Veron turned up at Old Trafford wearing David Beckham's outfit No.7.

It should have given rise to serious alarm. Not because the fashion- conscious Master Beckham is in the remotest danger of being displaced at Manchester United but because he now has no realistic chance whatsoever of moving inside to take command of England from central midfield.

The Pounds 28.1million signing of Argentina's playboy playmaker has surely condemned the most gifted English footballer of his generation to the right sideline for the peak years of his career.

Unless, that is, Senor Veron turns out to be almost three times as big a waste of money as the Pounds 10m squandered on England's lamentable and humiliating bid to stage the 2006 World Cup Finals. And even if that does prove to be the unhappy case, it will be so long before it is admitted that Beckham's prime time will be almost over.

None of this is Sir Alex Ferguson's concern, least of all since England are not in his national interest.

By spending a Sultan's ransom on Veron and Ruud van Nistelrooy, United's Scottish manager emeritus has given himself his best possible chance of going half-out in a roar of English and European glory next season.

It is not that long since Ferguson conceded that if he could find another player able to cross a ball anything like as well from the right then he would willingly give Beckham the helm of his team.

That quest having come up empty, he has bought in Veron to reinforce a midfield powerfully manned already by Roy Keane and Paul Scholes.

The door to the Old Trafford engine room is now officially closed and with that he has thrown away Beckham's key to the role in which he has been longing to fulfil himself with England.

That is Ferguson's business and only a fool would argue that the most decorated manager in the history of our national game knows what is best for United. The problem is that England are not blessed with a Keane or a Veron.

Not only that but Sven Goran Eriksson is not minded to use players out of the positions to which they are accustomed with their clubs.

Steven Gerrard has prodigious power but is susceptible to the kind of injury which may require Paul Ince or David Batty to be dusted down and trundled out one last time in Germany less than two months from now.

None of those - nor, as yet, any of the younger brigade - has demonstrated the visionary instinct or creative passing to unhinge the best teams in the world, while even Scholes is more poacher than puppet- master. So the question, which for Ferguson is no more than academic, is whether Veron really is good enough to justify Beckham's sacrifice. United's claim that they have bought the best in the world springs from their understandable excitement at spending so much money.

The detailed evidence of the 26- year-old Veron's career to date is not quite so compelling.

Not for nothing did Real Madrid pass on Veron in preference for Zinedine Zidane, a Pounds 48m world record investment funded by the sale of some of the finest real estate in the Spanish capital.

Not only for the saving of a couple of million pounds less than the cost of Veron did Juventus prefer to replace Zidane with Pavel Nedved.

Not for nothing, come to that, did Lazio agree to let him go.

And here we are not talking only about the Pounds 28m fee.

Not for reasons of professional advancement, either, do world-class footballers at the international height of their powers leave Italy's Serie A for the English Premiership. That Veron has Hand of God-given talent, as proclaimed by Diego Maradona, is beyond dispute. That the sum of his return on that ability is less than it should be in terms of medals for himself and trophies for his teams is not so easy to deny.

Maybe Lazio are trying only to placate their rebellious fans but the whisper from Rome is that they were coming to despair of Veron's tendency to hit passes as pretty but as superficial as many of his women.

Nor is this goatee on a broomstick - as this spindly figure with a beard is sometimes humorously referred to in Buenos Aires - quite the national hero and immovable fixture in the Argentina team as he and his publicists might have us believe.

Maybe Manchester will be the maturing of him.

Meanwhile Beckham, who has not been as effective at the highest level since being rumbled tactically when restricted to the wide right, is consigned to remaining a No.7 by position as well as the number on his shirt.

That leaves the real irony with Eriksson's England, assuming they qualify for the World Cup. Argentina are the favourites for 2002.

Should Veron prosper at Old Trafford he will further strengthen their prospects.

If not, then at least he will have baulked the development of England's captain into a potential threat to his own country.